Commemorative exhibition: “Creuer transatlàntic universitari del 1934”
The exhibition commemorates the 80th anniversary of the university transatlantic cruiser to America: an initiative fostered by the University of Barcelona that took place in the summer of 1934. The objective was to allow a group of students and professionals to visit some ports in South, Central and North America in order to experience questions learnt in class.
The ship, the Marqués de Comillas, of the Compañía Transatlántica Española, turned into a floating university that offered different specialized lecture series for some days. The project was based on learning from real situations and multidisciplinarity, ideas which were part of the education principles defended by the Institución Libre de Enseñanza (Free Educational Institution) and the Catalan Moviments de Renovació Pedagògica (MRP, Movements for Educational Reform). Some of these principles still remain far from being achieved.
The cruise lasted fifty days. It was led by Dr Ángel Ferrer i Cagigal, the then dean of the Faculty of Medicine, supported by two young lecturers of Philosophy and Letters, Guillem Díaz-Plaja and Jaume Vicens Vives. The Compañía Transatlántica collaborated in the project and offered low-cost tickets. The Board of Trustees of the University and the Government of Catalonia offered some scholarships. Around one hundred students and professionals, from the University of Barcelona and other Spanish centres, went on board.
With photographs, letters, prospectus, logbooks and any related document, the exhibition aims at bringing visitors closer to the experience lived by travellers. The main goal is to raise public awareness of a manner of understanding education and allow visitors observing a way of understanding knowledge and life that matched an advanced society which is an excellent model for todayʼs society.
Opening takes place on Monday 16, at 12.30 p.m., in the room 203 at the Faculty of Philology. Participating personalities are Lourdes Cirlot, vice-rector for Institutional Relations and Culture; Ana Díaz-Plaja Taboada and Marcelino Jiménez León, curators of the exhibition; Rosa Vila, director of the Department of Spanish, and Adolfo Sotelo, dean of the Faculty of Philology.